When you gather with family and friends this holiday season, take part in the Great Thanksgiving Listen of 2017 with your child as we honor and celebrate stories of the older loved ones in our lives. This vital intergenerational movement empowers young people to create an oral history by recording an interview with an elder, using the free StoryCorps app. Since the Great Listen began in 2015, more than 75,000 interviews have been recorded across the United States, providing families with a priceless piece of personal history and preserving voices of a generation. (All interviews uploaded to the platform will be archived at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress.)
Joining the Listen movement is easy:
- Download the free StoryCorps App for your iPhone or Android. Make sure to create a login so you can access your interviews later within the StoryCorps Archive.
- Select an interview partner and prepare questions for your interview. You’ll find suggestions to get the conversation going in the app or from this Great Questions list. The list suggests topics for parents and grandparents, as well as questions about work, school, growing up, and more.
- Have a conversation. Find a quiet place, sit close together, and start your conversation! Just follow the prompts in the app to begin recording.
- Share and archive your interview. Create a title and summary, and use descriptive keywords and this year’s keyword TheGreatListen2017. While you’re at it, share a selfie from your interview, and make sure to tag @StoryCorps #TheGreatListen!
So, honor someone important in your life by interviewing them for The Great Listen 2017. Help create a culture of listening that echoes across the nation.